The University of Sheffield has just put online four thousand photos of Britain in the 60s and 70s. They were the collection of JR James, Chief Planner at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in the 1960s, later Proferssor of Town and Regional Planning at Sheffield. There are a lot of maps and plans, but plenty of photos too. They cover both new town centres and the dereliction they replaced. The Scottish set is mainly Cumbernauld, but there are some vintage Glasgow shots in there as wellLink to home pagehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/jrjamesarchive/sets/Scottish Sethttps://www.flickr.com/photos/jrjamesarchive/sets/72157634491896533/The story behind the slides, forgotten in a drawer for thirty years and digitised by a couple of gallant graduates, is herehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29082338

I think blue is a wonderful choice of colour. After all, most of all the really great things in the world are blue. Like the sky, and the deep blue sea, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, made famous by the Laurel and Hardy song of the same name.

Leonard Cohen sang of the famous blue raincoat;

"It's four in the morning, the end of December I'm writing you now just to see if you're better The 'Nauld is cold, but I like where I'm living There's music on South Carbrain all through the evening"

The biggest animal in the world is the blue whale. One of my favourite nineties bands is Deacon Blue. Yes blue is a nice soothing colour and will make a pleasant change from seagull shit. Give the blue a chance. You might grow to like it.Don't be blue about the blue.

Anyway, just in case anyone was interested in a mooch around the highest of the high flats I thought I'd post this -

"On Saturday 12th September, the top floor of Cumbernauld's tallest building will be open for public access, with one last opportunity to get a unique view of our town before the block is demolished. Stuart House, in Burns Road, will be open as part of this year's Doors Open Days programme of events, and Sanctuary Cumbernauld will also be hosting an exhibition of pictures and showing plans for their continued housing developments around Cumbernauld. Stuart House will be open for public access from 10:30am until 4pm and there is no need to book in advance."

I lived on the 5th floor as a kid and the view was pretty good so from 19 it'll be cracking. They were great flats inside space wise, but freezing cold.

It's definitely the Glencryan Mine. There's a cracking set of pictures by a guy called Dave Walsh on flickr and they tie in with some of the footage in the video.The comments on some of the pictures are a mine of information too.(Did you see what I did there? )

Hi Cyclo 2000,never thought I would have to defend planners but here goes 'Down goes stumpy i' the ink' as the great man wrote.Planning a new town is difficult because all the good sites are occupied and only the marginal land is available,.Scotland was the home of the father of town planning, Patrick Geddes who saw towns based on a 'Valley Section' and functioned by the interaction of Work, Folk and Place, if you like, where you live, where you work and the environment around you. I see this as transport, communications economic activity and environmental impact.

I worked at Livingston in the mid 60s, planning main drainage until the traffic guys left and I was re-treaded as a highway engineer. Put together the basis for a computer model of the town and thought planning was all about that.

Subsequently studied for a planning diploma at Strathclyde Uni where a lecturer who's name I unfortunately do not recall, pointed out that the problem in planning a newtown was that they were conceived as in two dimensions, but existing towns had multiple dimensions, or interactions. Putting this simply, you do not have your old neighbours, the local pub or the wee corner shop.

I was knocked back initially on my thesis as it was 'too transport orientated' so I re-submitted a load of 'tat' that was considered OK!

Please do not knock the planners they get a lot of stick doing a difficult job.

Incidentally cyclo 2000.

I processed all the Barclays cycle stations in Westminster while pointing out to all that would listen that promoting cycling in these congested streets would lead to many fatalities given the action of HGVs at gyratories- Was I wrong?

I tend to see Town Planners as being a bit like Social Workers - whatever they do, however they do it, it is usually deemed utterly wrong. Which is not to say there weren't screw-ups, but here we are with a lot of hindsight, and the Town Planners are very often the scapegoats, it seems.

Anyhow, it's nice to see Patrick Geddes being namedropped

Lucky Poet - CSE Woodwork, 50m Swimming Cert.

All the world seems in tune on a Spring afternoon, when we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

Lucky Poet wrote:I tend to see Town Planners as being a bit like Social Workers - whatever they do, however they do it, it is usually deemed utterly wrong. Which is not to say there weren't screw-ups, but here we are with a lot of hindsight, and the Town Planners are very often the scapegoats, it seems.

Anyhow, it's nice to see Patrick Geddes being namedropped

Lucky Poet - CSE Woodwork, 50m Swimming Cert.

I don't blame town planners so much as the politicians who are usually at the back of them.

He advocated for the weak against the strong, the poor against the rich and labour against capital.